Keri Arthur - Fireborn

“ And for a damn good reason.”

“Did it never occur to you that I might also have had a good reason?”

“You were sleeping with another man,” he growled, “even as you were professing to love me. What more is there to understand than that?”

“Far more than you will now ever know,” I bit back. “Life isn’t black-and-white, Sam. Not when you’re dealing with someone who isn’t human.”

“But you live in a human world, and you were with someone who at the time held very human beliefs. How the hell did you expect me to react?”

There was anger in his voice, but there was also hurt and pain. It was a reminder that while his reaction had hurt me to the core, it was my actions that had truly ended our relationship. It was my refusal to trust, to share what I was and what that meant, to believe that someone could love me once they knew, that had doomed us from the very beginning.

Even so, I couldn’t help saying, “What I expected was a chance. But you couldn’t even look me in the eye once I told you what I was.”

“Because when I looked at you, all I saw was a lie . You, me, everything. It was all a lie.”

I closed my eyes against the sudden sting of tears. It wasn’t a lie. Not then, not now. “If you believe that,” I said quietly, “then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought.”

“Well, that , at least, is something we can agree on.” His voice was bitter. “Who else do you think could have taken the notebooks, if not the sindicati or us?”

I took a deep, somewhat shuddery breath and fleetingly wished I could turn my emotions on and off as easily as he seemed able to. “It could be the very same people who took Professor Wilson’s body.”

A lone muscle along his jawline ticked, but other than that, I might as well have been staring at a blank canvas. “And why would you think that?”

“Well, it’s hardly likely the red cloaks snatched Wilson’s body for the sole purpose of getting rid of any DNA evidence that might be found on it. An attack as public as that one suggests it was a very deliberate choice—and that means there’s another reason. One that’s a whole lot scarier.”

“That Professor Wilson is alive and now one of the red cloaks.” He briefly met my gaze. “We are aware of that possibility.”

“Then why not at least mention it when you knew Jackson and I were investigating Wilson’s death?”

“Why would I, when fruitlessly pursuing information on Wilson at least kept you away from Baltimore’s investigation?”

“What? You didn’t trust your own drugs to do the job for you?”

“I ordered you away from Morretti, and for a damn good reason. He’s not someone you want to tangle with, in any way, shape, or form. Especially now.”

I frowned. “Why especially now?”

He took a deep breath and released it slowly. Obviously, he hadn’t meant to add that little tidbit. “Because the sindicati is on the verge of a factional war, and it’s not something you want to be caught in the middle of.”

No, it certainly wasn’t. But if that was the case, which faction had questioned me? Morretti, or the other? And did it even matter in this particular case?

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly defenseless,” I muttered. “Or at least I wasn’t until you snatched any recourse I had of self-defense.”

“Let’s not get overly dramatic,” Sam all but growled. “The drugs only dampen psychic capabilities and shape-shifting for forty-eight hours. I’d foolishly hoped that you might come to your senses within that time and leave the investigation to the experts, but I should have known better.”

“It’s kind of hard to walk away from something when vampire goons and their werewolf buddies seem intent on either tracking me down or beating me up.” I shook my head. “But that’s not the only reason drugging me was dangerous, Sam. I’m spirit, not flesh, and no matter how much you and your organization think they know about phoenixes, trust me, it’s little more than a drop in the ocean.”

“And I will do whatever is necessary to protect the people I work with against forces that could destroy us, Em. And if that means risking the effects of a drug on an unknown entity to prevent an attack, then so be it.”

But that entity was someone you’d once professed to love. The words echoed through me, bitter and filled with hurt. Damn it, no. I wouldn’t go there. Couldn’t go there. This man might be the love of this lifetime, but that love was now a part of my past. It needed to remain there, no matter how much pain, regret, and anger lingered in the present.

No matter how much the occasional glimpse of the old Sam fanned the embers of hope.

“You know what? This is getting us nowhere. Just stop the car and let me out. Rory can—”

“Your damn lover can wait. ” The darkness within him was suddenly so close to the surface it was a living thing that crowded the car’s cabin. “You’ve got a notebook to find and hand over first.”

I somehow resisted the urge to inch away from him. In this confined space, that darkness—whatever the hell it was—was far too close, far too real, and far too dangerous. And, oddly enough, it reminded me a little of the man who’d silently watched me from the shadows.

“Rory is as vital to my life as the air I breathe in this form,” I replied, the bitterness within me evident in my voice despite my best efforts of control. “And the very least you could have done was listen. What we had deserved—”

“Enough.” It was an order and a warning, all in one. “We’ve studied your building’s security tapes. It wasn’t red cloaks who broke into your apartment, but a thief with a long history of subcontracting to the sindicati.”

I took yet another of those deep, steadying breaths, but it had as much of an effect as the rest of them. “I gather you’ve a warrant out on him?”

“Of course.”

He flicked on the blinker, and I realized with a start that we were now on the Tullamarine Freeway. Whether Sam was heading to PIT’s headquarters or my home was very much up in the air, but I suspected the latter given he wouldn’t want to risk me finding the notebook and handing it over to the sindicati.

“Unsurprisingly,” he continued, “he’s made himself scarce, but we have people checking his usual hangouts, just in case. The question, however, is why—if the sindicati have all the notebooks—do they now believe they are missing one?”

“That I can’t tell you.”

“Were there four or five on the USB you gave me?”

“Four, as I told you when I handed it over. I’d typed up the remaining one, but hadn’t gotten around to transferring it.”

I still had those notes, thanks to Rory. But I wasn’t about to tell Sam that. Not yet. I might need it as a bargaining chip for Jackson’s life.

“And you have no idea what happened to the final notebook?” Sam said.

“No. As I’ve told both you and them, as far as I was aware, all five had been stolen.”

His gaze narrowed, and just for a moment it felt as if he were trying to read my mind and unpick truth from lies. Eventually, he said, “Well, obviously not by the sindicati if they were willing to go to such lengths to secure it.”

“I think they saw me with Amanda Wilson and decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.” I hesitated. “You do know that the sindicati tried to kill her, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “To be honest, good riddance. But why the hell didn’t you report the attempted murder to us rather than the police?”